


Eat Your Heart Out

by rageprufrock



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-12
Updated: 2011-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Wednesday, Doumeki had a bento box with flowers on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eat Your Heart Out

On Wednesday, Doumeki had a bento box with flowers on it.

It was oval and black, decorated with a scatter of pink sakura petals. Inside, carefully sectioned off with poorly-handled green grass dividers—rice smudges, Watanuki noted with disdain—was heart-shaped pink-rice onigiri, weiner tulips, croquettes cut in half. There were an unevenly cut row of tamagoyaki and a tiny, badly-arranged rainbow of berries. In a paper muffin cup. That clashed with the onigiri by being exactly a different and uglier color of pink.

It had all come wrapped in a pale pink furoshiki, with a note on delicate, lace-edged stationary pinned to it. Just looking at it had made Watanuki want to vomit a little.

“Someone must like Doumeki-kun a lot,” Hiwamari-chan said, smiling behind her fingertips. “That seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just for a friend.”

Doumeki grunted and dug around for some chopsticks.

Watanuki stared at the bento some more, and feeling all the blood drain from his face in mortification, he asked, “IS THAT A HELLO KITTY MAYONNAISE CONTAINER?”

Stopping himself midway through stuffing one of the—obviously tasteless, totally dry, completely disgusting-looking, Watanuki thought—onigiri in his face, Doumeki looked down at the monstrosity in his lap and plucked the tiny, translucent pink container out to inspect it. Blinking lazily, he put it back down and said around a mouthful of hard and awful pink rice, “Ah.”

Flailing his arms, Watanuki said reasonably, “WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY YOU WERE GOING TO BE BRINGING YOUR OWN!” He waved at the second of his own bento furiously, indicating the beautifully symmetrical tamagoyaki, the beautiful sushi rolls in a rainbow of seasonally-appropriate colors, the playful medley of ocean-themed wieners in the shape of octopuses and fish and crabs, the completely tasteful and still charming hexagonal soy sauce containers he’d tucked into the corners of the box. “I WENT TO ALL THIS TROUBLE FOR NOTHING, YOU BASTARD AND—”

And that was exactly when Doumeki set down his now-empty flower box and reached over to snatch up Watanuki’s second bento, applying himself to it without so much as batting and eye—and even as Watanuki felt himself having a real actual rage blackout, he could hear Hiwamari-chan laughing in the background as she said:

“Maa—Doumeki-kun has such a good appetite!”

 

 *****

 

“And then,” Watanuki snarled, slamming down a tray of tea and mochi, sakura leaves pressed in exacting angles, “he had the audacity to start eating the bento I, Watanuki-sama, made! On top of everything in the other one!”

Yuuko, hidden mostly beneath a kimono that all but screamed of a long-ago extorted geisha, lifted her head miserably, dark bags under her eyes, skin sallow and near-green.

“Oh, Watanuki—have mercy,” she moaned. “My poor head.”

“That’s right, Watanuki, that’s right,” Mokona agreed, huddled in a dark, twitching ball near Yuuko’s feet. “Have mercy!”

“You wouldn’t need mercy if you just drank less,” he said, unsympathetic. He smoothed the apron underneath his knees as he sank to the tatami, fisting his hands over his thighs. “And then he asked for Chinese fried noodles for lunch! Can you believe him? First he eats nasty, disgusting, badly-made bento from just anybody and then he starts making requests all over again.”

When she lifted her head this time, Yuuko looked much less hung-over and far more intrigued. “Oh ho!” she said. “Somebody else is making Doumeki bento?”

“BAD BENTO,” Watanuki emphasized.

“Are they cute?” Yuuko pressed, pushing herself up, pressing herself near enough to Watanuki that he could feel the soft warmth of her breasts against his chest. He’d long ago realized any attraction he might have for her was summarily canceled out by the constant emasculation of working for her. “Did it show her love?”

Sputtering, Watanuki clutched the tray to his chest, shouting, “It showed incompetence!”

And gathering herself up enough to made a pass at the mochi and tea, Yuuko laughed, saying, “You must be more generous, Watanuki—not everybody makes such a good wife as you.”

He saw red.

“NO BEER WITH DINNER.”

“AH! WATANUKI IS A BULLY! A BULLY!”

 

 *****

 

On Friday, Watanuki brought two black, lacquered bento boxes, with beautiful etchings on the lid of a delicate plum branch. Inside were sakura-shaped sushi rolls and tiny, perfectly spherical croquettes—and not because Doumeki had seemed to eat those up so quickly, either! Because Hiwamari-chan liked them!—seaweed salad dotted with sesame nestled in a black liner. The packed rice was decorated with nori and salted salmon—cut and shaped like the one enormous cherry tree in Ueno park that always caught Watanuki’s eye.

“It’s so cute, Watanuki-kun!” Hiwamari-chan exclaimed, smiling so sweetly Watanuki felt all of his internal organs liquefy in sheer love. She clutched her hands together and studied the bento. “I don’t even know what to eat first! I wouldn’t want to ruin any of it! It’s all so pretty!”

“Ahh, Hiwamari-chan! Don’t worry! It’s all for you! I’m just happy I could make you happy!” Watanuki crooned, flushing at her. It was a perfect day, warm but with a breeze, and the world was in soft greens, spread out beneath a cloudless sky—they were curled up together, knee to knee on a picnic blanket in the schoolyard, and if there had ever been a time for a high school romance then this was—

“Oy—you didn’t pack any little things of soy sauce?”

Jerking round, Watanuki flexed his fingers in a grasping motion, trying desperately to convey how much he wished he could close his hands around Doumeki’s neck and just squeeze. “OF COURSE I DIDN’T PACK ANY SOY SAUCE BECAUSE NOTHING IN THE BENTO NEEDS IT AND YOU ARE SUCH AN UNGRATEFUL—”

“Too loud,” Doumeki complained, and reached over to filch the last two untouched croquettes in Watanuki’s own box. “No mayonnaise either,” he sighed.

Watanuki wasn’t sure what he yelled, but judging on how loudly Hiwamari-chan was giggling, it had to be rated pretty highly on his scale of righteous tantrums.

 

 *****

 

Before he made his way to Yuuko’s that afternoon, Watanuki stopped at the grocery store and stared—forlorn—at the a section filled with strawberry-shaped soy sauce containers, pink-lidded condiment tubes, tiny salt and pepper shakers, mayonnaise containers in a thousand different colors and shapes. There were bento dividers shaped like rabbits and dogs and flowers—an ice pack in the shape of a flower. An ugly teal flower.

In the end, swallowing hard, he put a package of fish-shaped sauce tubes in his grocery basket, and added to it a cellophane packet of pastel grass dividers and a bag of flower-shaped mini-mayo containers.

At the register, he added a set of sea animal plastic skewers and didn’t make eye-contact with the girl scanning his purchases.

 

 *****

 

That next Monday and Tuesday—brief reprieve Wednesday—and then Thursday there were again, pink bentos for Doumeki. And having condescended himself to tasting their contents Watanuki knew that while not toxic, exactly, they weren’t good, and the fact that Doumeki kept on eating them could only mean one thing.

“Ho ho ho,” Yuuko cackled, blowing smoke rings into the darkening sky. She pulled a heavily flower and dreamy screen tone-oriented manga from her bosom, tucked away in the folds of her kimono. “Doumeki-kun’s in the springtime of his life! Ah, high school romance, how sweet.”

Watanuki narrowed his eyes at the volume and sighed when he realized the two lovers staring deeply into one another’s eyes on the cover were both male.

“Will you pay attention!” he yelled, disgusted. “What are you reading!”

She stared at him, eyes huge. “Does Watanuki want to read, too?”

“NO,” he bellowed, and collecting himself he went on, “The point is, if he wants to eat her bento, then I don’t see why I should be making him any.”

Yuuko gave him a sideways look, shutting her trashy manga with a quiet whisper of pages.

“Now now, Watanuki—he’s been eating your bento longer than he’s eaten hers,” she said, and Watanuki felt a shiver run down his spine as he realized she almost sounded comforting. “Of course,” she added in a purr, “if you’d like to make a wish of it—I could make certain Doumeki never ate anybody’s bento but yours—”

“NO THANK YOU.”

Still grinning, Yuuko asked, positively evil, “So? What will you do?”

“Easy! I’ll just stop making him bento!” Watanuki sniffed, and resuming his scowl, he said, “It’s not like I ever wanted to make them for him, anyway—but now I can definitely stop.”

“My my, how decisive, Wata-nu-ki,” Yuuko said, and in the background, Maru and Moro chorused “How decisive! How decisive!”

“But what if Doumeki-kun’s admirer falls down on the job?” Yuuko pointed out. “After all, when you were telling me about the bento in excruciating detail, you said it was pretty small.”

Frowning, Watanuki said, “He should have thought of that before!”

“Watanuki’s jealous! How cute!” Yuuko shouted.

“Jealous!” Maru told Moro, shrieking giggles.

“Jealous! Very jealous!” Moro replied, wide-eyed and laughing.

“I AM NOT JEALOUS!”

 

 *****

 

Loathe as he was to admit it, Watanuki had spent some time that night tossing and turning in indecision: what if Pink Crappy Bento Girl stopped making them? Then what would Doumeki eat? Probably stale anpan from the school cafeteria and milk tea from the vending machine, he thought in disgust. The boy would never think to pack his own lunch—and then his thought process had derailed into a silent, twitching rant about how spoiled Doumeki was and how Watanuki couldn’t stand him and if Doumeki died of scurvy then well, that was just Doumeki’s problem, wasn’t it?

So in an epic three-fifths compromise between Watanuki’s dignity and just indignation, he thrust an orange in Doumeki’s face the next day at lunch.

“HERE,” he said, and slapped it into Doumeki’s palm.

Doumeki blinked down at it for a moment before turning back to him. “What is this?”

Clutching at his head in frustration, Watanuki yelled, “It’s an orange! An orange! Haven’t you ever seen an orange before?”

Frowning now, Doumeki asked, “Is the bento inside?” A pause. “Or did you forget.”

“I MOST CERTAINLY DID NOT FORGET,” Watanuki bellowed, everything blurring in his rage. He took a calming breath. “But I see as usual you have your pink flower bento so I, Watanuki-sama, will not be dirtying my hands making you lunch anymore.” He shoved a finger in Doumeki’s chest. “That orange is just a goodbye lunch present.”

“Why goodbye lunch?” Doumeki asked, deceptively mild though he was already plucking at the orange rind.

“To prevent scurvy,” he said stiffly, and he was thankfully rescued from the narrow-eyed look of suspicion on Doumeki’s face by Hiwamari-chan’s arrival.

“Ooh-oh,” she said, settling down next to Watanuki on the grass. “Are we all sharing a bento today? How fun!”

“Ah, no, no, Hiwamari-chan,” Watanuki said, pasting a beaming smile on his face. “Doumeki has his own, so I thought, why waste my time feeding him! He’ll just get fat! And lose all his archery tournaments and then the coach would be angry!”

Hiwamari-chan giggled, “You and Doumeki-kun are such good friends!”

“Hiwamari-chan!” Watanuki wailed, wronged, and tried desperately to ignore that same, unchanging look of curious annoyance on Doumeki’s face.

 

 *****

 

Making a bento for two moderate eaters was an entirely different prospect than making a bento for two moderate eaters and a black hole. So when Watanuki rolled up his sleeves the next morning and stared at the contents of his refrigerator, most everything seemed portioned for a dinner or a larger meal—and it wasn’t worth the trouble of heating up an enormous pot of peanut oil for this or that, if he was only going to make a little.

He resorted to throwing together a quick lo mein, slivering baby bok choy and julienne carrots, putting in a dash of soy and oyster and dark vinegar, a generous spoonful of sugar and minced garlic. He cut himself—twice!—shaving off little circles of green chives to garnish, and settled for cutting some feeble-looking stars out of leftover carrot to make a somewhat slapdash pattern on top of the noodles.

“It’s fine,” Watanuki consoled himself, dragging his feet toward school. “Everybody has an off day—it’s fine.”

“Oi.”

Flailing elaborately, Watanuki nearly flipped over a bush. Clutching at his chest, heaving for breath, he lifted a shaking finger to point accusingly at Doumeki, “YOU. WHY CAN’T YOU BE A NORMAL PERSON?”

Doumeki only stared at were Watanuki was clutching the knot of his furoshiki. “Is there one in there for me today?” he asked flatly.

“No,” Watanuki spat. He pulled the bento close to his chest. “This is for Hiwamari-chan and I! Not for you!” Clutching the box more tightly, he said, “Besides—you have the pink bento to worry about eating, wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings.”

Doumeki frowned at him. “Are you sick again?” he demanded.

Watanuki started searching the ground for a large-enough rock to throw.

 

 *****

 

Lunch was awkward. Watanuki had only a few things in life experience had never taught him to bear, and included on that list were pitifully rain-soaked children, sad-looking older women, baby animals, and hungry people. Doumeki somehow managed to amalgamate all but the “sad-looking older woman” into one picture of starving pathetic teenaged boy that almost made Watanuki thrust the bento in his face and yell, “JUST EAT IT. BASTARD.”

And he would have caved, too, between Hiwamari-chan’s uncertain looks and Doumeki picking at the unnaturally-shaped anpan he’d purchased—if some girl didn’t rush up, shouting, “Doumeki-sempai! Doumeki-sempai!”

“Ah,” Doumeki said, standing. “Ishida-san.”

Watanuki glanced sidelong at Hiwamari-chan, who just gave him a wide-eyed look.

“Ishida-san?” they asked together.

The girl stopped, skirt flapping, face flushed—Doumeki’s pink bento in hand.

“I’m so sorry, Doumeki-sempai!” she cried, turning bright red, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes flicked over to Watanuki and Hiwamari-chan, and mortified, she said, “Oh! I’m sorry, if I interrupted—”

“It’s fine,” Doumeki cut her off.

“Then,” she said, and hesitating, she held out the bento. “I looked for you all over the place this morning—to give it to you then, like usual—but I couldn’t fine you.”

Doumeki twitched as he took the bento from her fingers. To the uninitiated, it might have looked like an aberration—but it translated clearly into an expression of “damn it, caught,” to Watanuki, and when he glanced at Hiwamari-chan she hid a giggle behind her hand. So he wasn’t the only person to notice that Doumeki was squirming.

“It’s fine, Ishida-san,” Doumeki said, awkward. “You don’t need to—”

“Oh!” the girl said, eyes darting up to study Doumeki’s face in rapt passion. “But I want to, Doumeki-sempai!”

Doumeki made a “tsk” noise under his breath and looked at his feet. Watanuki stared in gaping horror. If Doumeki put a hand on the back of his neck, it was obviously going to signal the apocalypse.

And though Watanuki would have sworn up and down that girl couldn’t possibly turn any more red, she did, and fisting her hands in determination, she declared, “I’ve been so happy I could make Doumeki-sempai lunch these last two weeks!” and ran away.

They stared off after her for a moment. And then Doumeki rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked intensely uncomfortable, gritting his teeth.

“Ah,” Watanuki said eloquently.

 

 *****

 

At the end of Watanuki’s retelling of the days events, all Yuuko had to say was:

“Well? Was she pretty?”

Watanuki waved his arms. “WILL YOU FOCUS?”

Yuuko’s mouth curled into a cat-in-cream smile. “Oy, oy, Wa-ta-nu-ki, it’s important!”

Scowling, he paged back through his memory and through the haze of impossibility and foolishness that had colored that afternoon. Grudgingly, he mumbled, “I guess—she wasn’t ugly.” He paused, the image of the horrible pink of the furoshiki seared into his mind—and later, the bento, which had contained heart-shaped hamburger topped with tomatoes shaped into stars, a hard-boiled egg carved to look like a chick. Grinding his teeth, he added, “Not very ugly, anyway.”

“Ho ho ho ho! I’m not surprised! Doumeki-kun has that forbidding, solid look high school girls like so much—doesn’t he?”

“Whatever!” he snarled, slapping down another bottle of sake and turning to go.

And all of a sudden Yuuko was nearly curled around him, tipping his chin up with one long finger, nails lacquer-red like a keepsake box.

“Ah-ah, Watanuki’s angry,” she purred, and before Watanuki could even cry his protests, she continued, eyes mesmerizing, “But Watanuki—the important part isn’t that you are angry, it’s why you’re angry.”

Stuttering, he asked, “Why I’m angry?”

Yuuko smiled at him and ran a thumb over his cheek. “Poor Watanuki. You’re so close.”

“Soooooo close,” Maru and Moro chorus, beaming at him, and it’s just enough to break the spell Yuuko’s cast—for Watanuki to push himself up to his feet and stomp to the kitchen.

 

 *****

 

Ishida-san started making special deliveries of bento every day after that, and each time Watanuki saw her blushing face and listened to her all but stutter her way into an epileptic fit, he felt—for no good reason—demoralized about it all.

Thank God, she didn’t ever stay to eat, but Doumeki was even more staid and expressionless after she dropped by and not even Hiwamari-chan’s smile could shatter the pervasive sense of crap that had invaded lunchtimes.

“Mou, Watanuki-kun,” Hiwamari-chan murmured, worried. She stared down at his bento: packed rice with umenoboshi pressed into the center, tamagoyaki, and yesterday night’s leftover kim bap. None of it particularly matched. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Watanuki dug up a smile for her and stuffed a piece of kim bap in his mouth. “Just fine!”

Doumeki picked at his pink bento, glaring at his octopus weiners.

 

 *****

 

“Oy, Watanuki!” Yuuko yelled, slamming her chopsticks down onto the table with a thud. “Just because you’re angry at Doumeki-kun doesn’t mean you can take it out on us!”

“That’s right, Watanuki!” Mokona piped up, bouncing onto the table and pointing at the dishes. “It’s not our fault Doumeki is dumber than even you are!”

Watanuki blinked at them. It took several tries to see past the extraordinarily complicated bustier she’d chosen as dinner attire, but when he got past the gothic Lolita curls of black ribbon and leather ties, he saw that Yuuko’s face was a map of despair.

“What?” he asked, baffled.

Mokona jumped at him, grabbing onto his face and turning him toward the table, yelling, “Look at what you made for dinner! Dinner!”

Watanuki looked: yakisoba. He looked back up at Yuuko, frowning.

“I thought you liked yakisoba.”

Yuuko’s eyes bulged. She whipped out a Maruchan packet from behind her back—foil torn open and edge dark, stained with the instant sauce.

“This is yakisoba from a box!” she shouted, flinging the package. “This is a travesty!”

Watanuki tasted a noodle. It was fine, kind of salty, but really, inoffensive. He hadn’t had the energy to go grocery shopping that day, and they were out of chives and only had a little bit of garlic, and he’d forgotten to defrost any meat that morning. At least there were some green pepper slices, a few slightly-wilted pieces of carrot.

“It’s fine,” he told her, and at her mortified look, he added, “Oh, and we’re out of rice.”

Yuuko launched herself to her feet. “That’s it,” she snapped. “This has gone too far.”

 

 *****

 

Even years later, no matter how many times Watanuki asked Doumeki about it, all Doumeki would do was make a dark expression and say, “She made me make a wish.”

 

 *****

 

Tuesday, Watanuki was picking at his convenience store onigiri and listening morosely to Hiwamari-chan as she recounted knowledge gleaned from other females.

“So,” she told him, voice appropriately solemn, “it turns out that Ishida-san has liked Doumeki-kun for a long, long time.”

“I see,” Watanuki said.

Hiwamari-chan smiled at him kindly. “Ne, Watanuki-kun—it’s not like Doumeki-kun likes her back.” She faltered. “That we know.”

“Sure,” Watanuki mumbled around a mouthful of onigiri. “Right.”

Grabbing his hand suddenly, Hiwamari-chan said, “But Watanuki-kun! You and Doumeki-kun are still such good friends! I’m sure it’ll all be all right.”

Watanuki stared at her. “Hi—Hiwamari-chan…”

Watanuki used to wonder a lot if Hiwamari-chan was actually that innocent or if she was toying with him, and decided in the end that it didn’t really matter, since either way she was still WRONG WRONG WRONG.

But before he could try feebly and for the eight millionth time that he totally hated Doumeki, hated him to the very marrow of his bones, Doumeki-bastard himself said:

“Yo.”

Waving his arms, Watanuki pinwheeled around, mouth already open to shout—and nearly bit his tongue off.

“Ishida-san,” Hiwamari-chan said, all smiles.

Blushing furiously, Ishida nodded—and then she looked at Watanuki intensely before turning back to Doumeki, and then repeating the process three more times. Beside her, Doumeki’s expression was dark with a combination of loathing and humiliation—all expressed through the slightest curl of his lip.

“Hello, Hiwamari-san,” Ishida said, and turning an even darker color red, she said, “Ah—and Watanuki-san, as well.”

Watanuki tried not to grind his teeth or throw his onigiri at her. “Ishida-san.”

There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence where Watanuki kept expecting Ishida to just burst out of her skin and shout that she and Doumeki were getting married and it would be awesome and then Doumeki could eat her mediocre bento every day!

Instead, when Ishida met Watanuki’s eyes again, her gaze was fiery with determination.

“Watanuki-san!” she cried, and seized his hands.

From the corner of his eyes, Watanuki saw Hiwamari-chan’s eyes widen, fingers pressed to her lips in shock. Doumeki was covering his face with one hand.

“Ah—yes, Ishida-san?” he stuttered, feeling himself inching away from her.

She was nearly in tears. “I wanted to apologize! I’ve been so cruel to you!”

Watanuki stared at her, rapidly thinking up and discarding possible reasons for this outburst. Really, Watanuki deserved an apology for that time he’d tried the bolognaise sauce she’d made, but he doubted that was what she was talking about.

He didn’t get a chance to ask any questions or make any more baffled noises before Ishida added, “It must have been horrible! Horrible!” She looked down at their clutched hands in shame before she turned back up at him—eyes shimmering with tears. “I’m so sorry, Watanuki-san! I must have put you in an awful position—not to be able to say anything!”

Disturbed, Watanuki made motions to tell her that the sauce hadn’t been that awful, but he got cut off again when Ishida pushed herself to her feet, letting go of Watanuki’s hands and asked, voice pitiful, “So will Watanuki-san please forgive me?”

Watanuki said, finally, “What?”

Making a tsking noise, Doumeki grabbed Watanuki’s newly-released hand and grumbled, sounding like he was facing a firing squad, “It’s okay, Watanuki. We don’t have to pretend.”

Hiwamari-chan squeaked, and Ishida got even starrier. Watanuki shrieked, shaking his arm desperately, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HAVE YOU BEEN STRUCK IN THE HEAD LET GO OF MY HAND YOU FREAK!”

“Oy, Watanuki, you can stop acting,” Doumeki ground out, glaring at him intensely and emphasizing every word as he said, “Yuuko. Already. Told. Her.”

“TOLD HER WHAT? WHY ARE YOU STILL HOLDING MY—GAH! I CAN’T SAY IT LET GO LET—” and suddenly in the middle of his fit, all the horrible pieces slotted into place and Watanuki had a brief flash of memory: the horrible boys-love manga Yuuko had been reading, the Maruchan packet “—OH MY GOD,” he concluded, and promptly fell right over.

 

 *****

 

Watanuki moaned and threw an arm over his face. “Have I died?”

He heard Doumeki snort. “No,” he said, and pulled Watanuki’s arm away, pressing the back of his hand against Watanuki’s forehead, corners of his mouth flattening.

Slapping Doumeki’s hand away, Watanuki pushed himself up, feeling around until Doumeki handed him a pair of glasses. “Thanks,” he muttered, grudging, and blinked until Hiwamari-chan’s divinely beautiful face came into focus. “Ah, Hiwamari-chan!”

“Thank goodness!” she cheered. “Watanuki-kun is okay!”

Puffing his chest, Watanuki said, “But of course!”

“Well,” Hiwamari-chan said, chiding, “you did faint into Doumeki-kun’s arms.”

Watanuki felt his soul leave his body.

“It was wonderful Doumeki caught you!” he heard Hiwamari-chan enthuse, cheeks rosy and pleased. “Doumeki-kun and Watanuki-kun are so close!”

Doumeki made a dismissive noise at that, and Hiwamari-chan said, “Doumeki-kun must have been very worried! He ran all the way to the infirmary carrying you, Watanuki-kun!”

Watanuki lay back down, drained of his strength to live, and stared at the ceiling.

 

 *****

 

Watanuki stomped toward the sunset.

“Why are you following me?” he growled.

“You fell down,” Doumeki told him flatly. “On top of me.”

Whirling round, Watanuki shouted, waving his arms, “THAT WAS SHOCK! SHOCK! I TOLD YOU THAT WAS JUST—”

“And I live this way,” Doumeki interrupted and stepped around him to continue down the path, giggling middle-school girls scattering as he passed them, whispering to one another.

Watanuki raced around to plant himself in Doumeki’s path, scowling. “HEY.”

Doumeki sighed. “What?”

“WHAT? WHAT?” Watanuki thrashed angrily. “JUST WHAT DID YUUKO DO? WHAT DID YOU DO?”

Doumeki made another deeply put-upon noise. “She solved a problem for me.”

“What problem?” Watanuki asked, voice dangerous.

Watanuki would have sworn Doumeki was blushing—only the world wasn’t ending so it couldn’t be—when he muttered, “Ishida-san.”

Derailed, Watanuki blinked. “Ishida-san?” he asked.

Rolling his eyes, Doumeki nodded, making a faint noise of agreement.

“But you ate her bento!” Watanuki sputtered. “Her—her ugly, tasteless bento!”

Shrugging, Doumeki said, “I was hungry.”

“YOU ATE HER UGLY TASTELESS BENTO EVERY DAY YOU—YOU—I DON’T HAVE A WORD FOR YOU!”

“I eat your bento every day,” Doumeki said, taking a step closer.

Watanuki barely had time to process that. “What—what does that mean!” he shouted defensively, feeling all the blood rush to his face. “Are you saying my bento are—are ugly? And tasteless? That they’re ugly and taste—”

And then Doumeki muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “For fuck’s sake,” and kissed him—kissed the words right off of Watanuki’s lips and right—oh, my, Watanuki thought—out of his mouth.

When Doumeki pulled away, his mouth was red, and wet, and puffy; he looked disheveled.

“Too loud,” Doumeki said.

Watanuki made a face. He thought about yelling or possibly kicking Doumeki in the head and stomping away, but mostly, he wondered why they hadn’t done that before, and if that faint, sweet taste on Doumeki’s mouth was from that trollop’s lunch.

Finally he said, “You’re not very good at that.”

Narrowing his eyes, Doumeki asked, “Who else are you kissing?”

“NO ONE,” Watanuki yelled, mortified, and this time, felt no concern whatsoever about clocking Doumeki with his school bag and making a beeline for Yuuko’s, vowing to put rat poison in all of their food tomorrow.

 

 *****

 

On Wednesday, Watanuki brought two giant bento to school, wrapped in a white furoshiki with a blue hem. There was nikujyagu and Chinese long beans, stuffed, fried lotus slices, a wild green salad with tiny pig containers of ginger-soy dressing, and onigiri in the shape of leaves, lines embossed onto the nori wrappers.

When Doumeki made an immediate grab for one, Watanuki snatched it out of reach.

“That’s for Hiwamari-chan!” he said, and before Doumeki’s expression could darken, Watanuki opened the second bento, scowling determinedly down at the food and muttering, stringing all his words together in a low mumble, “Ithoughtwecouldsharethisone.”

Doumeki stared at him. Watanuki stared at the food.

And finally, reaching for his chopsticks, Watanuki could hear a smile in Doumeki’s voice as he said, “You forgot the soy sauce.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Eat Your Heart Out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/478529) by [Keitorin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keitorin/pseuds/Keitorin)




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